John Predmore, S.J., is a Northeast Province Jesuit and was the pastor of Jordan's English language parish. He studies art and directs BC High's adult spiritual formation programs. Formerly a retreat director in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Ignatian Spirituality is given through guided meditations, weekend-, 8-day, and 30-day Retreats based on The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatian Spirituality serves the contemporary world as people strive to develop a friendship with God.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ignatian
Spirituality: Set the World Ablaze

predmore.blogspot.com

The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

September 11, 2016

Exodus 32:7-11, 13-4;
Psalm 51; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

Today marks the fifteenth
anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States and this day has
become a worldwide solemnity for peace and prayer. It is fitting, then, that
our liturgical readings suggest the theme of mercy that our Pope has been
highlighting for us. They point out that God is always willing to embrace us
from our waywardness and to correct us through mercy. We simply have to respond
in gratitude to this undeserved mercy. Mercy is always undeserved, which is the
reason it changes the hearts of so many.

In Exodus, Moses is sent down the
mountain by God to chastise the Israelites for their waywardness. After
everything the Lord has done for them, he is feeling bruised because the
Israelites turned away from him and is worshiping a human-made statue instead.
How can their memory be so short-lived? They care for only their immediate
needs and the past no longer matters. However, the prayer of Moses helps the
Lord remember the existing covenant that was made in goodwill. God’s mercy
becomes the standard that we must follow in those times when we are betrayed and
snubbed.

The Gospel is a new standard for
mercy because it is the story of finding welcome at home despite the terrible
things we sometimes choose to do. Jesus was under attack for enjoying positive
friendships with sinners. To answer his critics, he shows them that he is the
one sent by God to find those who have strayed and to offer them a place back
at the table.He illustrates it with the
story of the Good Shepherd and the woman who finds the lost coin. It was easy
for people to relate to these stories because everyone has lost an object that
they valued, and it is easy to remember the immense satisfaction of finding it
once again.

Jesus raises the value of this
satisfaction when he changes it from lost objects to lost human relationships. The
stakes are much greater; the satisfaction is the overwhelming joy expressed by
the Prodigal Father. I am confident that nearly everyone in this church has
been affected by a broken relationship and we simply have moved on from that
which we cannot repair. Some have even stopped trying; some have even stopped
waiting for a response from a person who has left us. We may passively wait,
but without much hope, but we know the move has to be through the other
person’s initiative. We can no longer invest our efforts in futile gestures.

When we think of the loss the other
person feels, we feel deeply for them amid our powerlessness. We know the loss
dominates their psychological, emotional, and spiritual landscape, and it looms
large in their unconscious and conscious world. Their actions are defined by
this loss and they act in ways that keep that loss present. If we only knew the
secret of what may bring them back. If we only knew the trigger that would make
them love, honor, and value us again in the same way we really, deeply down
want to love, honor, and value them. A part of us is not complete without them
in our lives and we can never have the closure of understanding the cause of
the rupture. Neither of us can be complete until we reconcile and bring the lost
back home.

I would imagine that God does not
feel complete because of grief about those who walked away from the
relationship. I cannot imagine God is satisfied when we experience a break-up
of friendships either. Most of our prayers ask God to intervene somehow in our
lives to effect reconciliation or at least to give us peace. God, like the
Prodigal Father, stands on the threshold of the porch, peering out into the
horizon hoping that a wayward one has chosen to return home. That is all that
is important. The feeling of completeness. Overflowing satisfaction.
Deep-hearted contentedness. These are enduring moments that shape the promise
of the future, and this is what God wants for us.

No easy answers are available for
what we need to be to be open and available. For the most part it is out of our
hands, which makes it so frustrating. We cannot create the ultimate type of
environment that will bring someone back because the mystery of relationships
is far too incomprehensible. Let us commit ourselves to this particular
community of faith that rejoices when someone returns home. Let us feel their
joy, even in the midst of our despair. Let us focus on the joy that God feels
because we remain in friendship with God and God’s people. This affords God and
us great satisfaction. Let us always be a people that rejoices and gives thanks
that we have a God who accepts us with such a great embrace. Let’s pray always
for changed hearts across the world. Let us peer into the horizon as we stand
next to our Lord as we wait and hope and never give up.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First
Reading:

Monday:
(1 Corinthians 11) I hear there are divisions among you. I received from the
Lord what I also handed onto you. This is my Body; this is my blood. When you
eat this, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Tuesday:
(1 Corinthians 12) As a body is one though it has many parts, though many, all
are one body, so also Christ. The body is not a single part, but many.

Wednesday:
(Numbers 21) The people complained to Moses about God, as they were without
food and were being bitten by serpents. Moses made a seraph and mounted it on a
pole so that all who were bitten could gaze upon it and be saved.

Thursday:
(1 Corinthians 15) I preached the Gospel to you, which you received. Through
it, you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.

Friday
(1 Corinthians 15) If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then empty too
is our preaching; empty too is our faith, but now Christ has been raised from
the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Saturday
(1 Corinthians 15) The first Adam became a living being, the last Adam a
life-giving spirit. The spiritual was not first, rather the nature then the
spiritual.

Gospel:

Monday:
(Luke 7) A centurion sent elders to ask Jesus to save the life of his slave.
“Lord do not trouble yourself, say the word and let my servant be healed.”

Tuesday:
(Luke 7) Jesus journeyed to Nain and saw a woman carrying her dead son. The
Lord was moved with pity. He touched the coffin and said, “Young man, I tell
you, arise.”

Wednesday
(John 3) Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one
who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”

Thursday
(John 19) Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s
sister and Mary Magdalene. Jesus said, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said
to the disciple, “Behold your Mother.”

Friday
(Luke 8) Jesus preached in various towns. Accompanying him were the Twelve and
the women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities.

Saturday
(Luke 8) The seed is the word of God. Those on the path are the ones who have
heard, but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they
may not believe and be saved.

Saints of the Week

September
12: The Name of Mary was given
to the child in the octave that follow her birth on September 8th. Mary
(Miriam) was a popular name for a girl because it means "beloved."

September
13: John Chrysostom, bishop and doctor (347-407) was a gifted homilist and was called "Golden Mouth"
because his words inspired many. He was raised in Antioch and joined a
community of austere hermits but the lifestyle damaged his health. He became
the archbishop of Constantinople where he introduced many conservative and
unpopular reforms. He fled to escape an uprising from the people and on the way
to exile he died.

September
14: The Triumph of the Holy Cross remembers the finding of the true cross by the Emperor Constantine's
mother, Helen in early 4th century. Two churches were dedicated in the name of
the cross on this day in the 4th century. Therefore, the feast was applied to
this day. In the 7th century, the feast was renamed, "The Triumph."
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 335 was also dedicated on this day.

September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows was once called the
Seven Sorrows of Mary as introduced by the Servite Friars. After suffering
during his captivity in France, Pius VII renamed the devotion that
encapsulates: Simeon's prophecy, the flight into Egypt, searching for Jesus at
age 12 in the Temple, the road to Calvary, the crucifixion, the deposition, and
the entombment.

September 16: Cornelius, pope and martyr (d. 253) and Cyprian,
bishop and martyr (200-258) both suffered in the Decian persecutions.
Cornelius was being attacked by Novatian, but since Novatian's teachings were
condemned, he received the support of the powerful bishop, Cyprian. Cyprian was
a brilliant priest and bishop of Carthage who wrote on the unity of the church,
the role of bishops, and the sacraments. Cyprian died under Valerius after
supporting his church in exile by letters of encouragement.

September 17: Robert Bellarmine, S.J., bishop and doctor
(1542-1621) became a Jesuit professor at the Louvain and then professor of
Controversial theology at the Roman College. He wrote "Disputations on the
controversies of the Christian faith against the Heretics of this age,"
which many Protestants appreciated because of its balanced reasoning. He
revised the Vulgate bible, wrote catechisms, supervised the Roman College and
the Vatican library, and was the pope's theologian.

This Week in Jesuit History

·Sep 11, 1681. At Antwerp, the death of Fr.
Geoffry Henschen (Henschenius). A man of extraordinary learning, he was Fr. Jan
von Bolland's assistant in compiling the Acts of the Saints.